Manan Saluja

I have burnt enough for others Bearing ashes that I do not even own. I have excused plenty Without the dab of an explanation. I have walked home midway enough To come all the miles back Just on the jingle of a phone call. I have doormat-ed the honesty of my skin And let many to dust off their dirt on me. I have exhibited myself in the family display-case, That said- pick me. I have bowed enough In the temples Of Ardaas Amid the quietness of the mosque, Before all the still gods. I have bowed enough. And, now I stand, Now I bow down for myself, Bearing the ashes of my own Excusing myself for doormat-ing myself, For exhibiting myself on the display-case. Recognising, That I am hardly capable of protecting myself. How will I protect someone else? Recognising, That I have again walked home midway, I am not giving up on myself. And I am not ready to surrender parts of my emotions, I am not giving up on myself. ~Man says  

The deepest path you will ever take starts with- Everything around me is collapsing, Like a falling Jenga tower. You suddenly rouse at midnight, to the pitter-patter of rain, Believing that heaven is crying for you, Gawking at the whirls of the fan above you, Night after Night... And then, One fine summer you cotton on, That you cannot turn round the ratchet of time. To the point that everything under the sun happens for a reason, Be it for good or worse. That your life isn't a fallen Jenga tower, But a jigsaw, where the part missing is nothing but you. That you've been lost in your own trapped mind. But now, the deepest path you ever took, Had led you from a nightmare to a fairytale, Where you choose to heal your untouched wounds, Where you choose to control the rain of your haven, The clouds of your self-doubt, The storm within you, The summer of your happiness, And,  The winter of your own emotions. The deepest path you ever take is backbreaking. It's maddening. And, you...

  We're all born empty, she tells me. Then family happens, education of dangerous ideas happens,  People enter, people disappear, Bedtime fairy tales are misremembered,  You walk the line of self-discoveries,  You dig a wall inside you to find out that there's nothing behind it,  Nothing begins, and nothing ends, Revolution happens, questions happen, answers not-so-happen,  You become a walking state of revolution. They call it life, I guess. You enter the world and now suddenly, on a grey day under the loom of rain,  You want the world to leave. To leave you alone. Loneliness happens! It sits on your fragile chest every night. You miss the bedtime stories now but fail to remember any. You pick the book of your life every single midnight, but you can't breathe through the chapters of your own life. Then one day, you meet someone. Someone whose body starts to feel like home. Love happens! Cooking, cleaning, washing, living, movies, and stories happen. T...

 . Rumi once said; "This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. . Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond" Who are these guests? Being human is nothing but it is like a guest house to a new guest. These guests are our emotions and unexpected moments of realisation of how feelings take turns. And each one serves a purpose. No wonder Rumi was a superstar. Feelings are guests in the name of joy, happiness, sadness, grief, loss, depression, shame, malice, and so on which are not permanent, they come, do their part and go. The way I understand this is that every emotion is simply a guest. No emotion is ever permanent. Why then? Why do we hold on to grief or loss or pain? Why do we hate pain or loss or sorrow, to the extent where we disagree to even feel them? Pain is so much excruciating, and happiness is less delightful because we try to escape from these feelings. Suffering is inevitable. To hurt is to be human, and ap...

There's this saying -  "Why do i keep hitting myself a hammer? Because it feels so good when i stop". It is possible to romanticize pain.  It is possible we like the pain too. It is possible that we're wired that way. Beacuse we can only be as happy as we have been sad, you know? Having gone through  pain and trauma makes the ordinary and mundane somehow special and just a lack of trauma can become a source of happiness.  And i guess that's okay! Because lot of people don't choose that for themselves. But, this isn't about them,whatever I'm writing. It's about recognizing that every human being is capable of being self-destructive.  Some of us learn lessons and move on. Some of us get into a cycle of implosion and self- pity, and some stay in the grey area between the two. This tendency is the main reason we procastinate knowing well that it will have consequences. This is the reason we stay in toxic and abusive relationships. This is why we lie an...

Women entrepreneurs in India have come a long way! Isn't this true? I mean, just look at Ms Nair!  Yes! Ms Falguni Nair, the founder of NYKAA, in other words, The Achelois for women. Isn't she the best example of how far she justifies the title of my blog "We own it". A graduate of the Indian Institue of Management, Ahmedabad, Ms Nair spent the bulk of her career--over 18 years--at Kotak Mahindra , she left the job to pursue her own dream. In 2012, she started company Nykaa, which sells online cosmetic and wellness products. Today the company has become so famous among Indian women. The company offers more than 850 brands and has introduced 35 physical stores. In 2017, she got the title of "Most powerful business" by Business Today. She also received the "women Ahead" award at The Economic Times. Since 2014, The company has been a partner with Femina. I've read it somewhere-- "Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist - while you guys were bus...